Astrocyte knockdown of Drosophila Nkt selectively decreases night sleep

Figure. Nkt knockdown in fly astrocytes decreases night sleep. A) Expression patterns of two different astrocyte GAL4 drivers: eaat1-GAL4 and GMR86E01-GAL4. Both have been described as astrocyte drivers, although eaat1-GAL4 expresses in some cortex glia and in a small number of optic lobe neurons. Elav-GAL80 (eG80) was included in the background of eaat1-GAL4 flies to inhibit expression of Nkt.IR in neurons. B-C) eaat1-GAL4>Nkt.IR; eG80, GMR86E01-GAL4>Nkt.IR, and control populations. n=16-23 for all genotypes. GMR86E01-GAL4 was recently described by Kremer et al. (2017) as a good reference line for astrocyte expression. OL, optic lobe; Pr, protocerebrum. Size bars in A are 20 um. **, p<0.01 compared to controls.